It was only a few weeks ago that we were discussing how, thanks to how fractured streaming has become, watching NFL games is becoming more and more an expensive and complicated process. It’s gotten so bad that ESPN has released an app designed specifically just to help viewers find where to watch the NFL game they’re interested in. But finding it alone doesn’t mean you can watch it, what with the labyrinthian landscape of different cable and streaming providers the NFL has negotiated to show its games. The point is not only that this is getting far too expensive for fans, but that there is a mental transactional cost associated with all of this as well.
I can't speak for the NFL situation because I don't care about football, but years ago I was into baseball and was following the local team. I thought about subscribing to the MLB app since I had cut the cable cord years before that. Of course then I found out, due to ridiculous blackout rules, there was no amount of money I could pay MLB to let me watch local games in realtime.
The first year I was able to use my VPN to get around the blackout but when they closed the loophole the next year, I threw my hands up and cancelled my account. I'm done giving money to companies that only use that money to find new ways to restrict and lockdown their content.
With Soccer, back when I followed more closely, to get all the matches for my team I used a vpn to watch an Egyptian sports channel as they had all the matches in (for the time) hd with an English language commentary, to get the same in the uk I’d have had to have spent £40+ a month and I’d still not have been able to watch the matches that aren’t televised in the uk, but this Egyptian channel had every single game. Doesn’t exactly encourage paying for the service when the paid service is more hassle and worse than the pirate one by miles.
